Reflections
by nonvideri
Summary: In the depths of night, when no one is watching, it's easy to lose your restraint. (Shattered Mirror)


Disclaimer: Kristopher, Nikolas, Sarah, and Nissa all belong to Amelia Atwater Rhodes, sadly. Kathy is a made up girl conveniently there, waiting to have her life sucked out.

Quick Note: I just realized, a year after writing this, that vampires don't have reflections. -.- Let's just pretend they do.

** Reflections**

The bloodlust tore at him. It ripped savagely through his fragile defenses, making him very aware of the thick, red liquid that ran just underneath a thin covering of skin. He could reach it; he could penetrate the top layer and get this girl's rich, warm blood, with only but a simple motion. His fangs involuntarily slid out in his mouth. It was so close, wouldn't take very much but a slight lowering of his head, and he'd be there, drinking, draining, something's he's longed for so long to do-but no. She would hardly forgive him for killing an innocent girl.

Slowly, regretfully, he laid the girl down. A rather nondescript girl, wearing tattered jeans and a frayed sweater, but still, she had life. She would bleed. The sight of her there, with flushed cheeks, chest rising up and down in shallow breaths, almost made him lose his careful restraint, but he forced himself to turn around so that he couldn't see the human. It didn't help any, though; he knew that if he just looked back, the girl would still be there, full of blood and energy and everything he needed right now...but no. He had turned from that path a long time ago.

Silently walking away from the girl, the vampire tried to get as far away from temptation as possible. The drab gray and black of the streets offered no condolences, but at least they did not wave in his face what he could not have.

Nearing the end of the street, he stopped. A shattered mirror caught his attention, broken long ago, then abandoned, as most things were in this side of town. He saw a million reflections of himself caught in its powerful gaze, all distorted, twisted in some way. Even the colors were changed. His hair, normally silken ebony, was shown as a warm, sun-lit brown in one fragment, whereas his eyes, a piercing black, were made the cloudiest of grays.

This was like someone he once knew, he realized. Someone dear to him, like she was, but even more so, because...because...his memory ended there. He could not recall anything else, and when he tried, he was just grasping at emptiness. There was nothing there; he had been one of them for so long, he had forgotten. That angered him, causing him to slam his fist into the cracked mirror. There. Now there was nothing to remind him of that time...there was nothing worth remembering anyway.

He continued to wander the streets and dark alleys in the area, his right hand bloody and marked with many lacerations from the sharp edges of the glass. The vampire took no notice; in two minutes, there was nothing to show he had cut himself at all. Aimlessly he walked; he had nowhere to be, and just chose paths blindly, One place was the same as the next, and they all blurred together; the only difference in them at all was that he was in one at one minute and in another at the next. He made sure, though, not to wander back to the alley he had come from; he had no doubt the girl was still there, and second time around, he didn't know if he could turn her down.

In his mind he wondered why he walked away from the human at his first chance. Only she would care, and she had already told him that they could never be together. She had even hurt him when she was in danger from his brother to prove her point. They were as good as enemies now; he shouldn't let her hold him back. And yet, he was. What was he to do, though? He loved her. If she hated him, his life, his world, would come crashing down on him. If he killed, she would hate him.

Red started edging in on his vision again, and he stopped in the middle of a street, realizing that if he did not get some substantial blood now, he wasn't going to last much longer. He had left his brother at home, with the promise that he would feed, and he did not want to risk having his brother bring himself to him, because in that situation, he would probably kill, as they had done together all those years ago. No, there was only one thing he could do.

About to will himself over to SingleEarth, he heard snuffling sounds behind him. Quickly turning around, he spotted the girl before she noticed she'd been seen. The exact same girl he'd barely controlled himself from killing.

Warily, she stared at him, before recognition hit her face. Her voice, softened by a few weeks on the streets, still seemed loud in the silence. "Hey, aren't you in my history class?"

History class? Oh yes, she sat near the front. One of his sister's friends. He tried to remember her name. Kathy. Kathy McGowen.

He put on his best innocent, unguarded, _human_ face, and smiled. "Right. I remember you. What happened? Why're you out here?" He indicated the desolate area with a sweep of his arm. The vampire had no time to spend catching up with a classmate. He had to hunt. The girl didn't know how tempting she was, filled with the thick, red life essence, the drink that would quench his thirst. So close, so close...

He was alarmed when she walked up to him so they were only a few feet apart. "Sometimes, I walk around to think. Other times, I get my next fix." She laughed humorlessly. "God, when my parents found out..."

His hunger was momentarily overshadowed by his disgust. Drugs made blood taste bad, gave it a papery twang. This girl didn't make for good prey. He'd best save them both time and walk away. "Well, I got some things to do. Nice seeing you." As soon as she was out of sight, he would go to SingleEarth, like he planned to.

As he turned to walk away, she surprised him by rushing to catch up. "I happen to be going this way too. You don't mind, do you?"

Inwardly he groaned. How long would it take to lose this girl? But it would look suspicious if he refused, so he just nodded. She was lucky she was on drugs, or he probably wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to suck her dry at that point.

She fell into step with him, and they walked on for a few blocks. Sometimes, her brown hair brushed against his shoulder, and he had to remind himself to not take her in his arms, tilt her head back, and just drink, drugs or not. Damn, he needed to feed. How could this girl be so stupid? Could she not see that he had things to do?

Finally, they reached the intersection where she would go left, and he would turn right. He prayed she would just go peacefully and quietly, but this, alas, was not the case.

After thanking him for walking her this far, Kathy did something that would seal her fate: she hugged him. It was a friendly hug, and if he had fed, he would have accepted it in good humor, but he had _not._ In that moment, his control shattered.

He moved his head so that it rested against her neck, and smiled as his fangs slid out. His mind did not register her panicked screams as his fangs punctured the skin; he was too wrapped up in the taste of the warm, life- giving blood filling his mouth, sating his hunger. He was so far out there that he didn't even remember to stop after a few pints. No, he had not nearly had enough. He needed it all, needed to drink till there was no more left, until she could not give anymore.

In his rush, he didn't realize her heart was slowing, that she was almost dead. The fact finally found its way into his head through the red haze, and he dropped the girl in horror. She fell with little resistance; due to the blood loss, she'd probably die in the next 5 minutes. There was no point in bringing her to a hospital. She barely had enough blood to fill a cup. And it was all his doing.

He'd killed. He didn't really drain her _completely_, so technically he hadn't, but in his mind, he knew that the girl would have been perfectly fine if she hadn't crossed paths with him. So now, he was a murderer. The control he had so carefully kept for 50 years now was completely obliterated. His sister would never forgive him. She would never forgive him. Hell, he would never forgive _himself_.

Turning, he fled, leaving the unconscious girl to bleed out the rest of her life on the abandoned street. He stopped when he got to the mirror, the one that had angered him so. It was broken into fragments, strewn all over the ground. As before, it made him pause a moment, to look into its depths. This time, there was no soft gray, or iridescent brown. Only pure, undiluted black.  
  
** end -2.4.03**  
  
Hmm...well, obviously wrote this a while ago and just now decided to post it. No one need tell me how overdone this plot is, it was the only thing I wrote worth anything, I thought. So be kind with your words and review, please?


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